Emergency, War 10!

The Tories and their stooges in the Mini-Tories have been quick to point out that the cost of the war against Libya will not come out of any existing budgets from Government departments already squeezed by the cuts, cut - in some cases - to the bone, and then beyond.

No, it will, instead, apparently, come out of a "contingency fund" in the Treasury, which is kept for emergencies and dire situations, according to Danny Alexander, on BBC's Question Time.

Now just hang on a cotton-pickin minute, thar, boy! Run that by me one more time, as Captain said to Tenniel or vice versa. The country is allegedly stony broke, on its uppers, so much so that the church mice are having a whip-round for us and yet, all the time, we're all in this together (though clearly some of us are "in it" up to our necks and sinking fast, while others haven't even had their expensive shoes splashed, yet) and all this time, the Treasury has a secret slush fund, a giant piggy bank in the underground car park, a hidden panel that, when pressed reveals a cupboard stuffed with £50 notes or something? What?!?!

Not only a secret slush fund, but one which must be fairly substantial, since it can stand funding the UK bombing the crap out of Benghazi with missiles that cost £800,000 each!

This, for me, raises a very important question. If this money is supposed to be used for emergencies, when is an "emergency" not an "emergency"? If we have got to the stage where we're shutting hospital wards, Sure Start centres and libraries, that is a bloody emergency! If we have got to the stage where we're cutting police because we can no longer afford to keep our streets safe, that is an emegency! If we've got to the stage where thousands of people are being laid off - in the construction industry for example - that is an emergency. If we've got people having their houses repossessed and being turned out onto the streets, that is an emergency.

Forget foreign adventurism and posturing on the world stage. We have little or no idea who these Libyan rebels are, or, in the long run, whether the situation there would be better or worse for our intervention. The examples of Iraq and Afghanistan don't hold out much hope.

Meanwhile, you don't need a flashing blue light and a howling siren to see that there are many more urgent "emergencies" at home, caused by the Con-Dims "bombing" their own economy, to appease the markets and bankers, that deserve much more to benefit from the judicious application of Danny Alexander's secret slush fund.